Question of the Week: What’s Your Biggest Time Waster?

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You’re probably thinking today’s question has nothing to do with you. After all, you never waste time on unimportant things, right? 🙂

Let’s just pretend that you’re one of those unfortunate people who find themselves being distracted by time wasters during their work days.

I face a lot of the same time wasters as my clients: getting sucked into social media for hours at a time, checking and re-checking email, and watching too many cat videos when I should be tackling my to-do list.

The best way I know for ditching my time wasters is to choose my 3 main priorities for the day and ignore everything else until those tasks are completed. Then I can goof off as much as I want knowing that the most important things are done.

Need help finding your lost minutes and prioritizing your work? Download my Where Does My Time Go? worksheet.

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20 Comments

This is amazing – pinpointing where time is wasted is incredible. I always say, “I don’t have time” for thing a or b, yet spend endless hours bullshitting around on the computer. What a waste of my time! Even when I’m doing something semi-worthwhile (researching a teaching idea, etc.) it can still eat up time I dedicate for other things – especially the things I don’t want to do!

This worksheet is genius!! Social media and email kills my time everyday. I love the tip on doing the three most important things and then goof off the rest the day…that is going to be my new moto!! 🙂 Thanks for sharing.

So, I’m kind of scared to fill out that worksheet! haha. But seriously. I definitely recheck email too much. I love the idea of figuring out what things are priorities and doing those first before anything else.

Oh gosh, I waste so much time WORRYING. I always tell myself if I stop worrying and just focus on what to do I may accomplish more than just wasting my energy and emotional strength. haha
This worksheet is very smart. It would help to get it out on to something visible. =)
xo,
nancy

I LOVE this. So way back in the day when I first started blogging I hit a point where I was convicted about my time management. I put together something like this and it was really eye opening at what I was spending my time doing!! This is a fantastic reminder! I am going to have to print this out and try it again!

Taynia | The Fiscal Flamingoon August 30, 2013 at 3:51 am

Great worksheet! I tend to rationalize many of my time wasters. When I’m commenting on blogs (hehe) or reading articles or posting on social media, I can always chalk it up to networking or promoting. It’s an eye opener to write down how much time you spend on those activities though. And also a kick in the butt motivator.

Oooh I love this worksheet!! My biggest time waster is 100% the internet. I get sucked in for hours!! THe fact that I have it on my phone along with my computer makes it that much more difficult for me to break away from it but I’m trying to be better about checking my phone. My best bet is to just keep it out of reach and I need to remind myself that I don’t need to respond to texts within 30 seconds of receiving it.

Email is definitely one of my top time wasters!! I have so many emails in my inbox that it drives me batty.

I used to be good at only checking and responding to emails twice a week, but then I fell off of that and get sucked into checking it daily. Outside of that, Social Media takes up time.

Love the idea of doing the 3 most important tasks and then goofing off the rest of the time!

I also find that I get more work done in the early morning versus the evening. So, I need to start planning my schedule accordingly. Although, I know I get more work done in the morning, most of the times I put those tasks off until the end of the day. This is no bueno! 🙂

Hey Jennifer! Thanks for commenting. I’m an early bird too, and I get the most done before lunch. Emails take up a chunk of my time too, and honestly, most of the messages I receive don’t need to be answered right away. I’m getting better at prioritizing all the time.

Style Journeyon August 28, 2013 at 4:39 am

My biggest time waster is definitely the computer. Even at work I might be logging into the bank or 401-K website and something on the home page of the internet always catches my eye!